Usually the workers are helping the shoppers at the SOS Thrift Shop, but on Saturday, the volunteers were getting help from frequent customers.
On May 28, volunteers from Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort and RBC came out to work a shift at the SOS Thrift Shop.
The volunteer shift was part of the Community Partner Initiative through SOS where members of a business or organization come together to volunteer for a shift at SOS.
Luke Nixon-Janssen, who is the director of sales at Tigh-Na-Mara, said he asked his friend Kevin Gillanders if he’d like to do a team building event between the resort and RBC.
Gillanders, who is the vice-president of commercial financial services for Vancouver Island North with RBC, said they were looking to do something in Parksville that has an impact on the local community.
“We started looking at different organizations and SOS jumped out as one that I think the Tigh-Na-Mara group is passionate about,” Gillanders said.
From there, Nixon-Janssen said he reached out to SOS and got the ball rolling.
For their morning shift of volunteering, Gillanders said the staff had the volunteers doing a variety of different tasks. He added the volunteers got a quick tour of the store when they first arrived.
Gillanders said there were at least 10 people volunteering between the two teams.
“Everyone is busy and the customers are helping us out when we don’t know where to put stuff,” Gillanders said.
“People are doing some tagging, some people are putting out merchandise, some folks are testing out electronics right now. Whatever we can do to help out the cause today,” Gillanders said.
Both Gillanders and Nixon-Janssen said they were hoping they’d be allowed to test out the electronics.
The RBC Foundation also created a grant for SOS.
“Because we got this many people out, RBC has a program through RBC foundation that allows us to raise an additional $1,000 for SOS today,” Gillanders said.
“So because of Tigh-Na-Mara’s support and the folks from RBC that came out, we’re happy to make that donation on behalf of everyone volunteering here today which is pretty exciting as well.”
Nixon-Janssen said he’s hoping to make this an annual initiative between the two businesses and SOS.
SOS offers more than 30 programs, free or subsidized, to residents of all ages in the community. More than 80 per cent of the funding for its programs comes from the SOS Thrift Shop, and 95 cents of every dollar raised through thrift shop sales goes back into the community.
